La Romieu

 We are in the Gers region of France, 100 miles from the Spanish border. We didn’t know where that was either, but we’ve struck lucky with this lovely old walled village, walkable from the spacious campsite. You enter the village through a gate in the wall.

Once inside, the village retains a medieval feel, as the next two photos show.

The village was established as a stopping point for pilgrims by two German monks, in 1082, on their return journey from a pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain. It became an increasingly important centre for pilgrims so that by the 14^th century one of the Pope’s local  administrators decided to build a huge church incorporating fortified walls enclosing the village.  The church and walls look impressive even now.

The church was attached to a monastery constructed at the same time. The cloisters can be seen, but are almost crumbling away.

We noticed an ancient funeral cart parked in a corner, too flimsy to be in current use, but maybe ok as a prop in a Dracula film.

La Romieu is still an important stage for pilgrims heading to Santiago using the ancient pilgrimage route, now designated as long distance path GR35. Pilgrims bound for Santiago traditionally wear a cockleshell symbol and we observed many walkers with this emblem. One such pilgrim even had a donkey loaded with his clothes and camping gear, probably as many medieval pilgrims would have done ( but without the ipad).

The village has another story to tell: the legend of Angéline. She was an orphan who surrounded herself with cats for companionship. Then, after several consecutive years of famine, the villagers were forced to eat their cats to survive. But Angéline had kept some of hers hidden away. Now came a good harvest, but the grain was being eaten by rats as there were no cats left to control them. Ah, but there were, and Angéline’s heroes saved the day! It is said she even got to look like a cat, as this stone carving outside the tourist office indisputably shows.

The fun bit is that, as her cats are the emblem of the village, there are numerous cat effigies to be spotted in various places. A kind of feline “where’s Wally” hunt; for example:

The village is really beautiful, and the church/monastery bears another photo from a different perspective.

Getting back to the real world, the communal wash place was in use until the last century. It is fed by one of the many springs issuing from under the village. It reminds us that times past weren’t defined by the romantic old buildings we see today – life was often unbelievably tough, so hang on to your cats!